Robert Conroy

by Red Inferno: 1945: A Novel

  The tactics were simple. The jets would be the first to attack the enormous Russian bomber stream that radar said was approaching the American defenses along the Weser. The jets would dive from on high and rip through the Russian air fleet at blurring speed, killing as many as possible and throwing the meticulous Russian formations into confusion. When they were finished, the other Allied fighters would take over and continue the battle. With luck, he and the others would be able to refuel and attack again and again. Jet fuel had been in short supply in Hitler’s Germany, but the Americans, even without any operational jets of their own, had devised a way to adapt British fuel and were well on their way to making their own.

  There. He saw them. A long, ugly smudge of what looked like locusts coming in below him from the east. The hundreds of Russian bombers, quickly identified as Ilyushin IL-4s, were, as usual, flying in tight formation, close up and three abreast in a serpentine line that stretched for miles. Russian fighter pilots could be quite good, but their bomber crews generally were not.

  He hand-signaled to his wingman, another German, a man who’d shot down more than two hundred Soviet planes, and received acknowledgment. They had kept radio silence and it was unlikely that the advancing Russians suspected their presence. They would logically expect American propeller-driven fighters, not jets.

  Quicker than he dared think possible, they were over the Russians. Galland made another signal and the scores of sleek-winged jets began their attack, like wolves ripping into the herd of sheep below.

  TOLLIVER WINCED AND closed his eyes as the earth shook again. It was impossible to think clearly, much less hear. He glanced at Holmes and the couple of others in his trench on the west bank of the Weser and saw the pale terror on their faces. Did he look like that? God help us.

  After a few drinks, some of the older men in the bars of Opelika had told of the incredible artillery barrages of World War I and how men went mad under the incessant thunder, knowing they could be blown to pieces, or turned to jelly by a near miss, or buried alive at any time. How long before that happened to his men? Or to himself? Buried alive was the worst of the three terrible choices. It was the stuff of nightmares.

  The Russian barrage had commenced only an hour earlier, and that hour now seemed like forever. They had been fired on before by German artillery, but it had been nothing like this Russian effort. There must be hundreds of Russian guns zeroed in on his position, churning up the earth and lifting clouds of dust and smoke that made it nearly impossible to breathe. As any fool knew, it was part of the softening-up process that would precede the Russian assault.

  Incredibly though, he didn’t think anyone had been seriously hurt. When they had retreated across the Weser, they had been directed to preplanned and preconstructed defenses that had been well sited and built to withstand Russian artillery. His respect for the army’s engineers had always been high. Now it was astronomical. Despite the noise and thunder, he was fairly safe from anything but a direct hit by a very-large-caliber shell, or a lucky piece of metal coming through a gun port. Neither seemed all that likely. All they had to do was stay sane.

  Earlier in the day, the Russians had tried their luck at bombing the dug-in Americans. It had been a curiously ineffective attempt. While a lot of Russian planes had appeared overhead, their attacks had been disorganized, and it seemed to him that a lot of bombers had been content with dropping their load in the general direction of the ground and getting the hell out of there. Of course, the presence of large numbers of American fighters certainly had something to do with it.

  Despite warnings not to, many soldiers, he and Holmes included, had stuck their heads out to watch the battle in the skies above. The sight of hundreds of planes circling like angry bees in the blue sky above had stunned them. So too had the numbers of smoking aircraft streaming earthward like smudgy banners in a macabre dance of death.

  Holmes had tried to put it in perspective. “At least foxholes don’t fall down and crash.” Tolliver knew it was a play on a recent Willy and Joe cartoon that had appeared in the soldiers’ newspaper, Stars and Stripes. In it, Willy and Joe assured a sailor that they preferred the army because foxholes don’t sink. Tolliver thought Holmes had a very good point for a damn Yankee.

  “On the other hand,” Holmes had continued in his aggravating nasal manner, “foxholes can get crashed into.”

  At that point, their observations had been interrupted by the sight of a small black object streaking across the sky at an incredible rate of speed. It made the other planes appear like they were standing still. “What the hell is that?” Tolliver had asked.

  “A plane, sir,” Holmes had said cautiously. “Only, I don’t know what kind of plane could move that fast.”

  Mesmerized, they watched the dark bug dash in and out of the fray. They thought they saw its guns fire, and they saw planes disintegrate and plunge from the sky as the deadly bug whipped through the battle storm.

  Holmes grabbed Tolliver’s shoulder. “Lieutenant, there’s a couple more!” This time the strange planes came out of their dives and flew close enough to the ground to give them a fair look. “Jesus, sir, those are jets.”

  Tolliver laughed aloud. “And they have American markings.”

  Tolliver had heard rumors of the German jet, but had thought it was a flight of Hitler’s fancy. Now they had emerged on the American side of the war. As he tried to think out the implications of that, a couple more Russian planes began their death spiral to the ground, courtesy of the American jets. Sometimes, when a plane was destroyed, there was a parachute with a pilot dangling forlorn and vulnerable beneath it, and these floated to the ground like pods or seeds from some strange tree.

  Sometimes, though, the parachute didn’t quite open and the pilot was sent on his own death spiral, screwing himself into the ground at high speed. Tolliver could only wonder what last thoughts went through a man’s mind as the ground rushed up to squash him like a bug on a windshield. He shuddered. Foxholes don’t crash, he continued to tell himself.

  Another Russian shell landed close, bringing him back to the present. Once again they were covered with dirt that had blown in, but had escaped unscathed.

  “Lieutenant,” said Holmes, “I am getting fucking sick and tired of this.”

  Tolliver thought it was a dumb comment to make, but let it go without a sarcastic rebuttal. Maybe Holmes just needed to get it off his chest. “So am I, Holmes.”

  “No, I mean it, sir,” Holmes insisted. “Do you realize we’ve been fighting for more than two months straight? We haven’t been pulled for any rest or refit, we haven’t gotten reinforcements, nothing. It’s like we’ve been sent out to fight until there’s nobody left.” “Holmes, I don’t think that’s quite what’s happening.” “Yeah, sir? Well, how many’s left in the platoon? I’ll tell you: fifteen! And I checked, and there’s only sixty-two in the company. After all this, who the hell knows how many’ll be left.”

  Tolliver hadn’t thought of it in quite that way, but Holmes’s numbers were correct. They had gotten their share of supplies and ammunition, but there hadn’t been any fresh, warm bodies to fill in the gaps made by fallen comrades. Was the rest of the division in as bad a shape? What about corps? Or Bradley’s whole army group? Two thirds of his men were down. If that figure carried over to the rest of the army, just what the hell would they do to stop the Russians when they crossed the river only a couple of hundred yards to their front?

  Another barrage of shells shook them and showered them with fresh debris. At least, he concluded, they were knocking the Russian planes out of the air faster than they could come at them. But he wondered about artillery duels. If the American big guns were returning fire, he was unaware of it. He was totally focused on the thundering Russian efforts to snuff out his young life.

  “Y’know, sir,” Holmes continued when there was a breathing spell and they could better hear each other, “I almost wish the Reds would actually attack.”

  Tolliver rubbed the d
ust out his eyes with a damp cloth. “Why?” “Then at least this bombardment shit would let up.” Billy Tolliver of Opelika, Alabama, thought for a minute and concluded that he agreed with the annoying little Yankee. Let’s end this shit. Let’s get it over with one way or the other.

  CHAPTER 27

  After a solid day of intense, ground-shaking artillery bombardment, the first Russians had come by night as paratroops descended behind American lines along the Weser. Thus, instead of being able to concentrate totally on the advancing hordes to his front, Tolliver had to detail a couple of his few remaining men to watch the rear of their defenses as word of the enemy airborne force reached them. Tolliver swore. He didn’t have enough men to fight on two fronts. The paratroops to his rear kept some of his men occupied while darkness and man-made smoke hid the enemy to his front.

  With the arrival of dawn, he was able to see what the Russians had accomplished throughout the night’s fighting. Almost oblivious to American shells raining down on them, Russian infantry massed on the other side had pushed a horde of small boats into the water and paddled across. Some of the boats held only two or three men and had apparently been taken from local fishermen, while others held a dozen or more. He was further surprised to see Russians pushing horses into the water and urging them to swim across while other soldiers hung on to their manes and saddles for dear life. There was no apparent organization to their efforts. Wherever they reached the other side was their objective. The effort was crude and insane, but effective.

  Many of the Russians died in the attempt, and the Weser, not quite a hundred yards wide where Tolliver’s unit had dug in, was stained red and littered with human and animal debris that slowly drifted away. Tolliver was close enough to the water’s edge that he could hear the screams of wounded horses and men. Despite the carnage, the Russian numbers prevailed and some small beachheads were established.

  When this occurred, the Russians manhandled barges into the water. When a barge was safely floating, ramps were connected and a tank loaded onto it. While the barges crossed, other Red Army tanks on the east bank laid down covering fire. Since this was direct fire, it was disconcertingly accurate, and Tolliver and his men had to keep their heads down. Again, the Russians suffered heavily, and Tolliver saw a couple of tanks disappear into the river and sink like stones as the barges were hit. No crewmen emerged alive when this happened.

  Tolliver yelled at Holmes to report the situation up the line. Holmes shook his head. “Phones are down, sir. I guess their paratroops cut the line.”

  Yeah, Tolliver thought. They probably did, although the phone lines could have been severed by Red artillery as well. They couldn’t go around suspecting there were Russians behind every tree. Hell, he thought bitterly, there weren’t many trees left standing. Holmes used the walkie-talkie and got through to the next platoon, which had already sent the information to the company commander.

  In front of them, a Russian tank struck a mine. The explosion lifted the vehicle and sent pieces of tread flying into the air. In a perverse way, Tolliver felt sorry for the men in the tank. They would have to stay where they were until the battle passed them by before they could attempt repairs. All the while they would be vulnerable to American fire. The disabled tank’s main gun barked and the shell hit a few dozen yards to his left. So much for sympathy, he thought bitterly. That tank could still kill.

  Tolliver’s men opened fire on the advancing Russians, cutting down about a dozen before the others dropped and hugged the ground.

  “Keep it up,” he yelled. “We got ’em stopped.”

  Holmes put down the walkie-talkie. “Second platoon is pulling out, sir. Word from the CO is the Reds punched a hole down a ways in G Company and we’re being flanked.”

  Tolliver was shocked. They had stopped the Russian advance. An enemy tank was dead and so were a bunch of Reds. “They want us to retreat? You’re bullshitting me, aren’t you, you damned Yankee?”

  “No sir, no bullshit. The word is retreat. Now.”

  Tolliver swore. A fat lot of good all the defenses the engineers had built had done them. They’d withstood the bombs and the artillery, but after only a couple of minutes against the exposed Red infantry, they were going to have to pull back. At least there were more defenses built and prepared behind them.

  “Let’s go,” he ordered, and the handful of men he commanded emerged from their trenches and burrows into the smoke-filled sky. They hunched their shoulders as they trotted back, as if that would protect them from shells or bullets.

  There was a short, angry stutter of automatic weapons fire, and Tolliver saw a man in a baggy uniform standing directly in front of them. A Russian, his mind screamed. It was one of the paratroops, and he was fumbling with reloading a deadly looking submachine gun, a look of panic on his face. Tolliver fired his carbine from the hip and a number of his men did the same thing at the apparition, who lurched backward from the sudden storm of bullets and lay still.

  “Shit!” Tolliver said. He had never been that close to an enemy soldier before. The Russian had been only a few feet away. “Anybody hit?”

  There was a few seconds’ silence while his shocked platoon checked themselves. “One,” said a voice. “Holmes.”

  Tolliver whirled and looked at his fallen radio man. The bullets from the Russian’s submachine gun had stitched a hideous pattern across his chest, exposing bone and organs. Holmes’s eyes were open but blank.

  “Should we take him with us, sir?” It was Barrie, his senior surviving NCO.

  Tolliver thought for only an instant. They were still out in the open with a long way to go. “No,” he said sadly. “We leave him here.”

  Tolliver reached down and pulled off one of Holmes’s dog tags. Then he looked down at the Russian. Angrily, he fired several shots into the dead man’s chest. “That’s for Holmes, you motherfucker.”

  As they turned to continue their withdrawal, Tolliver noticed some activity around the damaged Russian tank. Were they trying to fix it?

  “C’mon, Lieutenant. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Barrie, what are the Russians doing to that goddamn tank?”

  Barrie looked for a moment, spat on the ground, and grinned. “Yeah, Lieutenant, I see what you mean. They’re siphoning gas or whatever the fuckers run on.”

  Tolliver laughed. The Russians were so short of fuel they were cannibalizing their own disabled vehicles on a red-hot battlefield. Not only that, they were ignoring the fuel drums strapped to the back of the tank, behind the turret. Why? Because they were empty, that’s why.

  “Who’s got the walkie-talkie?” One of his men waved a hand as they commenced trotting away. “See who you can raise, and tell them to report back what we just saw. Tell them the Russians are running out of fuel.”

  Poor Holmes, he thought, glancing back at the limp body on the ground. You bugged the shit out of me sometimes, but I will miss you. God damn the Russians.

  GENERAL ADOLF GALLAND searched the empty skies for a target and found nothing. He was not surprised. The Russian planes had paid a terrible price since the assault on the Weser had begun. It had been only three days since the first bomber wave had fallen prey to his jets, and now the Allied fighters almost totally ruled supreme. He alone had accounted for fifteen Russian planes confirmed killed, and several others damaged, and his was not the best total. Some of his younger pilots had double his amount.

  The former German jet fighters had more than decimated the ranks of Ilyushin bombers along with Yak and MiG fighters who’d tried to escort them, and even killed a few armored Stormovik tank destroyers. After the first day, the slow, blundering bombers had not been seen again. He was not aware of any ME-262 having been shot down by a Russian. A few had been lost, but he thought that might have been due to equipment failure, and there was one report of a jet colliding with a Yak that was too slow to get out of the jet’s way. If true, that was a shame, but it was also war.

  On the dark side, about a third
of his planes were grounded because of mechanical problems. The jet was a fairly fragile kind of weapon that needed to be maintained much more carefully than the ground crews were used to. The American P-47s and P-51s, on the other hand, were unfeeling brutes by comparison, needing comparatively little maintenance and repair. The jet, he concluded, was the rapier, while the P-47s, P-51s, and others were the broadswords and battle-axes.

  Galland understood that the victory in the skies had not been his alone, and that the Americans would have won it sooner or later. But he did know that the Luftwaffe’s jets had made it possible for that victory to occur with astonishing swiftness. Statistically, the relatively small number of jets had killed an average of twenty Soviet planes each, while the Americans had a four-to-one kill ratio.

  The Russians, however, were not totally done. Galland thought they would lick their wounds and hoard their remaining planes and save them for the proper time and place—like last night, he thought wryly. Who would have suspected a Russian attack at night? All their other attacks had come during the day. Thus, the order to scramble from their supposedly secret American-run base had been a surprise, and many of his men had taken far too long to get their planes in the air.

  Vectored into the Russian airplane stream by radar, they had chewed on the formations and then watched incredulously as transport planes disgorged hundreds, perhaps thousands of paratroopers onto the American defenses.